CHAPTER XVII

THE NEW MASAGO

THE following morning dawned clear and bright, not a remnant of mist or

fog remaining to recall the previous night. A bright yellow sun arose

from behind the hills and beat away every vista of gloom from the skies.

It poised above the river Hayama, as though to look upon its own

reflected light; then swept along its early course, flooding the land

with new light, and piercing the shoji walls of the chamber of the maid

Masago.

The Princess Sado-ko opened her eyes, looked half dazedly, half

wonderingly, a moment at the unfamiliar ceiling overhead, then sat up on

the mattress. Her eyes wandered about the room in a helpless, bewildered

fashion for a moment, then suddenly a little flickering smile of

recollection came. She slipped from the mosquito netting.

She was in pale blue linen. Below her gown her little bare feet twinkled

over the matting as she hastily crossed the room, pushed the casement a

small way open, and peeped without. A breath of delight escaped her, for

from Masago’s chamber her eyes looked out upon the old delightful scenes

of her childhood, the far-reaching meadows, sloping hills, and Fuji-Yama

smiling in the morning light.

For some time she remained by the casement, enjoying simply the morning

and its gentle breezes. Almost unconsciously she found herself waiting

for the attendance of her maiden, Natsu-no. Then recalling Masago’s

words that henceforth she must robe herself, she laughed.

She had no difficulty in dressing. Masago’s wardrobe was of the

simplest, Yamada Kwacho limiting her in dress expenditure. Sado-ko

donned a pretty plum-colored crêpe kimono and a dark, gold-figured obi.

Her hands fluttered delightedly over Masago’s clothes; they were so

simple and comfortable, she thought.

When she was quite dressed, she forgot to put away the bed,—a duty

Masago always performed,—but stepping out upon the balcony loitered for

a moment in the sun. Then the garden’s fragrance captivating her, she

ran down the little flight of stairs into the garden.

Flowers grew abundantly there,—simple and common flowers they were, but

preferred by Kwacho because of their very lack of cultivation, and hence

their naturalness.

Almost recklessly Sado-ko plucked them, filling her arms with blossoms.

She had an inclination to sing and laugh and pick flowers all the day,

she felt so strangely free and happy.

When a servant came and watched her from the kitchen door, the girl

smiled toward her. The woman appeared taken aback at the good will in

the girl’s face. Masago had been over-bearing toward her father’s

servants, which had made her generally unpopular among them. The

servant’s voice was not so sharp as she had intended it to be. Would

Masago have her morning meal?

The young girl in the sunny garden nodded cheerfully, then hastened

toward the house, her flowers in her arms. She drank her morning tea in

happy silence, but smiled so often at the waiting maid, that the latter

marvelled at her amiability of mood. When Sado-ko had finished, the

woman said, almost in a deprecating tone:—

“I did not mean to give offence last night, Masago.”

“Offence?” repeated Sado-ko. “Did you give offence—to me?”

“Why, yes. Do you not recall my looking at the picture in your hands?”

“What picture? Oh, yes, yes. Did you do so? Now I do recall it.”

She moved toward the door to cover her confusion, then turned her head

backward, smiling sweetly at the servant.

“Do not worry, maid. I am not offended.”

A moment the woman stared at her in bewilderment. Then she said with

some hesitancy:

“Before you went to Kyoto, Masago, I always took the liberties with you,

which since your late return you appeared not to desire. I, being long

in your family service, as you know, was hurt.”

Sado-ko paused in the doorway.

“When—when did I return?” she asked, in a curious tone, as though she

could not recall the exact date. “I have been away it seems—yes—I have

been away; but when did I return?”

“Why, only two days since,” declared the maid, in astonishment.

“How absent is my little mind,” she laughed. “Two days ago. Why, yes, of

course—and let me see, I have been gone—” She appeared to calculate the

time.

“But half a year,” said the servant. “You were to have stayed one year,

but your affianced, having acquired such great fame at court, your

father wished to hasten on your honorable marriage.”

“Oh,” said the girl, and then repeated in a low, happy voice, “hasten on

my marriage.”

She turned suddenly toward the maid.

“Do you find me changed?” she asked.

The woman regarded her dubiously.

“Ye-es—no. Last night I thought you more than usually impatient,

Masago.”

“Ah—was I so? I did not mean it.”

“But to-day you seem more kind than even as a child, though you were the

most gentle, passive, and best of little ones.”

“And so I am just now,” said Sado-ko, merrily. “I am not changed one

little bit. Think of me, if you please, as a child.”

“Perhaps the fault was mine last night,” pursued the woman, glad to

prolong the conversation with Masago.

“Look!” exclaimed the girl, pointing to the garden. “See, some little

children!”

“Your brothers, Masago. Can you not see?”

“Brothers—mine! Oh-h!”

Dropping her flowers on the veranda, she ran lightly down the path, as

though to meet the little boys. Halfway down the path a sense of panic

seized upon the princess. She paused in painful hesitancy, scarce

knowing which way to turn.

Would not these little brothers of Masago recognize the deception? Could

the likeness be so strong as to deceive Masago’s own family? A maid’s

judgment was but a poor criterion.

She stood quite still, waiting, yet dreading their approach. Her first

impulse had been to run in loving fashion to meet the little boys. Her

sudden fear of these individuals saved her from doing that which Masago

never had done, caress or fondle her small brothers.

While Sado-ko possessed an innate love of nature and of children, these

things but irritated poor Masago, who called the country dull, the town

enchanting, children wearisome, and fashion fascinating. Though each

feature of the faces of these two sisters was identically alike, their

natures vastly differed. Sado-ko was all her mother in nature, and even

the cold harshness of her life had frozen but her exterior self. Masago

was the complement of Prince Nijo. Her previous environment, association

with Ohano, and possibly a little portion of the latter’s nature made

her what she was,—a girl of weak and vain ambitions.

Now the princess stood hesitating, fearfully, before the little army of

Masago’s brothers, five in all. The older ones spoke her name

respectfully, as they had been taught to do. The smaller ones pulled her

sleeves and obi mischievously, as though they sought to tease her; but

when she laughed, they seemed abashed, and ran to hide behind a tree

from whence they peered at her.

The maid who brought them from the neighbor’s bade the girl an apathetic

good morning, and seemed surprised at the cordiality of the other’s

greeting.

Sado-ko breathed with some relief as the children disappeared within the

house. Then for the first time she sighed wistfully.

“If they had loved Masago,” she said, “surely they would miss her. But

no, a stranger steps into her clothes, takes her place within the house,

and fickle childhood cannot see.”

In gentle depression she moved toward the house, then slowly up the

steps to Masago’s balcony, from which she watched the children take

their morning bath in the family pond. It was a pretty sight, she

thought, to see their little bare, brown bodies shining in the sun. A

little later the elder children went whistling down the path to school

while the nurse disappeared with the younger ones.

“Strange,” said Princess Sado-ko, “that none of them seemed glad to see

their sister. Was not Masago loved, then?”

She pushed the doors open and thoughtfully entered the chamber.

“Perhaps,” she said, “the foreigners speak truth. What is that pretty

proverb of their honorable religion? Is it not, ‘The love begets the

love’? Masago plainly did not love her little brothers. Hence they have

but indifference for her.”

Again she sighed.

“Ah,” she said, “what kind of maiden, then, is this I have exchanged for

me?”

She saw the tumbled couch upon which she had slept. She recalled the

fact that Masago had told her she would be required to make her own bed

and attend her own chamber, for Kwacho deemed such household tasks

desirable and admirable in a woman.

Therefore the exalted Princess Sado-ko, the daughter of the sun-god, as

she was called by all loyal Japanese, fell to work upon the homely

employment of rolling up a mattress bed, beating the little rocking

pillow, folding the quilts and the netting. Suddenly she sat down

breathlessly among the simple paraphernalia which constituted Masago’s

bed. She had forgotten where the maid Masago had told her the clothes

were kept! The little thought perplexed and troubled the Princess

Sado-ko.

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